A Score to Settle

After Tampa, the schedule doesn’t get any easier. The Bears come to Lambeau Field on Sunday, October 11, with kickoff at 3:25 p.m. Central on FOX. It’s the first meeting since January’s Wild Card game at Soldier Field, when the Packers jumped out to a 21-3 lead, still led 27-16 with under five minutes left, and lost 31-27 on a Caleb Williams touchdown pass to DJ Moore with 1:43 to go. Add the two blown leads against Chicago last regular season, and nobody in Green Bay has forgotten.

It’s also a big date on the Micah Parsons watch. Week 5 is the first game he’s eligible to play after starting the year on the PUP list, although his own target has been the Cowboys game a week later.

What We Know About This Bears Team

Ben Johnson’s offense came out swinging, putting up 59 points and 552 yards on Carolina in Week 1. Williams was sharp in that one, throwing for 269 yards and two touchdowns while running for two more. Week 2 was the opposite, a 9-3 loss in Minnesota where Williams hurt his right hamstring late in the game and had to be carted off. Johnson has called him week to week (Associated Press via ABC News), and whether he’s at full speed by October 11 is the biggest question for this game.

For the Packers, the keys are pretty simple. Stop the run, which has been a problem all year, and finish the game this time. If Green Bay can do that, I like the Packers in a close one at home. We’ll post a full prediction once we see how the Tampa game and Chicago’s next two games shake out.

Sources: Packers.com, 2026 schedule, Chicago Sun-Times, Wild Card recap, Bleacher Nation, Bears vs. Panthers, ABC News, Caleb Williams injury, Athlon Sports, Parsons status.

Featured photo: Paul Cutler, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.